Archive for the ‘European Union’ Category
October 24, 2011
While European leaders are struggling to put together a rescue package for Greece which will not have a domino effect for Italy and Spain or drown too many European banks, David Cameron is facing renewed opposition to membership in the EU from within his own party. But it is not only in the UK that opposition to the growing exercise of powers by Brussels is increasing. Almost every EU member which has not adopted the Euro (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and the UK along with some of the newer members) has rising voices calling for the limitation of European power and a return of powers to the country parliaments. Voices against the Euro can even be heard in Germany where there is a widespread feeling ( not entirely wrong) that German taxpayers are paying twice for the spendthrift ways of Southern Europe; first directly by subsiding these countries and secondly by the devaluation of their savings in Euro. The Swiss are just thankful that they were never a part of this experiment.
In hindsight, what has become obvious is that the Euro-zone has few built in sanctions to prevent the profligacy of some countries which has to be paid for by others. What is also becoming clear is that without a fiscal uniformity – which would seem like being taxed from Brussels – the possibility of “bad” members being spendthrift will always remain.
France has always seen the Euro as part of a long-term move towards a European political and fiscal uniformity in which France would be the centre of political power. A return to the glory days of the Holy Roman Empire which lasted over 800 years, except of course that the centre would be in France rather than in what today is Germany. Sarkozy could certainly see himself as the first Emperor.
Yesterday, as the Telegraph reports:
(more…)
Tags:Brussels, David Cameron, Euro, European Union, Eurozone, Nicolas Sarkozy
Posted in European Union, France, Global economy, Greece, Politics | Comments Off on Sarkozy attacks Cameron – much to Cameron’s delight
October 8, 2011
Håkan Juholt, the relatively new leader of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, is in deep trouble.
He became leader of the party following an old fashioned “coup” in March this year – reminiscent of a Soviet style of leadership change which did not bode well for the “renewal” of the party.
Håkan Juholt: FOTO SCANPIX via SvD
It now seems that back in 2007 he moved into his girl-friend’s apartment in Stockholm and since then has been claiming the entire rental of the apartment as his “temporary” residence in the capital. Apparently he should not have been claiming more than half the rental. (By the rules, if he had evicted his girl-friend and was the sole occupant he would have been perfectly entitled to his claim!).
In any event his exaggerated claims have totalled some 160,000 kronor (about $23,000) that he was not entitled to. Yesterday he called a press conference and apologised excusing his behaviour on “not being aware of the rules”. He paid back the money yesterday. His acknowledgement of his “ignorance of the rules” is being received with some incredulity since an “internal audit” within the Social Democrats had apparently identified the problem back in 2009. The Parliamentary Finance Office pointed out the non-compliance a month ago when Juholt applied for an increase in his compensation because the rent had increased. That he kept silent for a month and only decided to apologise and pay the money back after the Aftonbladet newspaper had revealed the scandal has not added to his crediblity.
The extra payment he claimed has amounted to about 3,500 kronor per month and considering that his monthly salary is 144,000 kronor (about $21,000), the impression he has created is one of a greedy little man looking for every kronor he can squeeze out of the system.
Of course he is not the first – and is certainly not the last – Swedish politician caught with his hand in the till. Many have distinguished themselves by jumping housing queues and “purchasing” rental accommodation with very lucrative results. Swedish politicians are also known – both at the national and at the local level – for blatantly arranging the rules to ensure their financial well-being even after they have left office. Their defence thereafter has always been that they are “just following the rules” but they don’t usually mention that they made the rules themselves.
Swedish politicians like most of their European counterparts are extremely moralistic about the behaviour of others but are remarkably hypocritical when it comes to their own behaviour. Their own sense of ethics leaves a lot to be desired.
Tags:cheating politicians, ethics, false expense claims, Håkan Juholt, Stockholm, Swedish Social Democratic Party
Posted in Behaviour, Ethics, European Union, Politics, Sweden | 3 Comments »
October 4, 2011
I take man-made carbon dioxide (3 – 4% of an atmospheric concentration of 0.04%) as being quite insignificant and essentially irrelevant for climate change.
But global warming ideology has led to the opportunistic development of the carbon trading obscenity which funnels vast amounts of tax money into the sticky hands of a few developers and their parasitic politicians and bureaucrats. The UN (Kyoto protocol) and the EU (carbon trading) programs are particularly to blame. The frauds and scams connected with carbon trading do nothing for our climate but they encourage the greed which leads to the most obscene and despicable behaviour. I posted recently about the excesses in Honduras which led to the murder of 23 farmers. But I had missed this story which came out in the New York Times two weeks ago. 20,000 Ugandans have been evicted, houses burned and people killed to allow a UK company to plant forests and earn millions in selling the resulting carbon credits:
In Scramble for Land, Group Says, Company Pushed Ugandans Out
KICUCULA, Uganda — According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner. People here remember it quite differently. “I heard people being beaten, so I ran outside,” said Emmanuel Cyicyima, 33. “The houses were being burnt down.” Other villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers. “They said if we hesitated they would shoot us,” said William Bakeshisha, adding that he hid in his coffee plantation, watching his house burn down. “Smoke and fire.”
According to a report released by the aid group Oxfam on Wednesday, more than 20,000 people say they were evicted from their homes here in recent years to make way for a tree plantation run by a British forestry company, emblematic of a global scramble for arable land.
“Too many investments have resulted in dispossession, deception, violation of human rights and destruction of livelihoods,” Oxfam said in the report. “This interest in land is not something that will pass.” As population and urbanization soar, it added, “whatever land there is will surely be prized.”
Across Africa, some of the world’s poorest people have been thrown off land to make way for foreign investors, often uprooting local farmers so that food can be grown on a commercial scale and shipped to richer countries overseas.
But in this case, the government and the company said the settlers were illegal and evicted for a good cause: to protect the environment and help fight global warming.
The case twists around an emerging multibillion-dollar market trading carbon-credits under the Kyoto Protocol, which contains mechanisms for outsourcing environmental protection to developing nations. The company involved, New Forests Company, grows forests in African countries with the purpose of selling credits from the carbon-dioxide its trees soak up to polluters abroad. Its investors include the World Bank, through its private investment arm, and the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, HSBC.
Read article
That the New Forest Company is opportunistic and greedy is inevitable and understandable when the benefits of the carbon trading programs were flouted under their noses. That they were unaware of the methods used is not credible. The results of the carbon trading scams are becoming sick and despicable and the EU politicians and bureaucrats who administer such schemes cannot continue to hide behind their misplaced intentions to “save the globe” and their “rules”.
Tags:carbon trading fraud, EU, Kyoto Protocol, New Forests Company, Oxfam, Uganda, United Nations
Posted in Alarmism, Behaviour, Climate, European Union, Fraud, UN | Comments Off on Carbon trading greed drives land grab and eviction of 20,000 in Uganda
October 3, 2011
The EU carbon trading fiasco continues and is characterised by greed and fraud. But it has now expanded to embrace the murder of 23 farmers by the developers who in their greed for EU carbon credit money had forcibly – and with the aid of the Honduran authorities and private militias – stolen the farmers’ lands.
Aguán farmers allegedly killed by private militias
Canada Free Press reports:
The deaths were facilitated by the “direct involvement of private security guards from some of the local companies who are complicit with police and military officials”
The reported killing of 23 Honduran farmers in a dispute with the owners of UN-accredited palm oil plantations in Honduras is forcing the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) executive board to reconsider its stakeholder consultation processes. In Brussels, the reported killings have triggered European policymakers into action, with Green MEP Bas Eickhout calling the alleged human rights abuses “a disgrace”
EurActiv carries the full story
… In July, a report by an International Fact Finding Mission was presented to the European Parliament’s Human Rights Sub-committee, alleging that 23 peasants, one journalist and his partner, had all been murdered in the Bajo Aguán region, between January 2010 and March 2011.
The deaths were facilitated by the “direct involvement of private security guards from some of the local companies who are complicit with police and military officials,” the report said.
In some cases it cited “feigned accidents” in which peasants were run over by security guards working for two named palm oil businessmen. In other cases, the farmers were simply shot, or “disappeared”.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights will be holding a hearing into the report on 24 October, and a delegation of MEPs will be visiting the region between 31 October and 4 November.
But because of a three-year gap between the stakeholder consultation process and the biogas project approvals, the CDM board recently ruled that the project had met the criteria of its mandate.
And the gullible European politicians who have caused this mess are taking refuge behind their “rules”. The global warming ideology which lies behind all the carbon trading scams has much to answer for.
“We are not investigators of crimes,” a board member told EurActiv. “We had to take judgements within our rules – however regretful that may be – and there was not much scope for us to refuse the project. All the consultation procedures precisely had been obeyed.”
Tags:carbon trading murders, carbopn trading fraud, Clean Development Mechanism, European Union, Honduras
Posted in Alarmism, European Union, Fraud | 1 Comment »
September 2, 2011
Loss making companies have acquired a new value in M & A activity, especially if they have accumulated losses which can be carried forward against future profits. In some countries carry-forward losses are as high as 25% of GDP.
Shifting profits to tax havens has been used by corporates (and individuals) increasingly since the 1970’s, but shifting losses to high-taxed countries can be just as effective. A new report has just been issued by the OECD, Corporate Loss Utilisation through Aggressive Tax Planning, ISBN Number: 9789264119215, Publication Date: 12/08/2011, Pages: 92
An OECD press release states:
30/08/2011 – Due to the recent financial and economic crisis, global corporate losses have increased significantly. Numbers at stake are vast, with loss carry-forwards as high as 25% of GDP in some countries. Though most of these claims are justified, some corporations find loop-holes and use ‘aggressive tax planning’ to avoid taxes in ways that are not within the spirit of the law.
This aggressive tax planning is a source of increasing concern for many countries and they have developed various strategies to deal with it. Working cooperatively, countries can deter, detect and respond to aggressive tax planning while at the same time ensuring certainty and predictability for compliant taxpayers.
.. countries have identified financial instruments that create artificial losses or obtain multiple deductions for the same loss. They have also seen loss-making companies acquired solely to be merged with profit-making companies and loss-making financial assets artificially allocated to high-tax jurisdictions through non arm’s length transactions.
Reuters reports that
The OECD report, which singled out one industry — financial services — said banks headquartered in high-tax countries were buying and selling derivatives among operating subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions and then shifting losses to higher-tax jurisdictions to “manage large loss-making financial assets” held on their balance sheets.
Martin Sullivan, an economist at Tax Analysts, a trade publication, said he thought the majority of the loss-shifting described in the report “pertains to banks, since they are the ones that had huge losses in 2008 and now are making profits.”
The tax-boosting principle at work centers on loss carry-forwards, a legal accounting technique that allows corporations to apply their current year’s net operating losses to profits in future years. While the move is designed in part to help companies avert bankruptcy, it also allows them to reduce their tax bills. ..
The OECD report identified what it called three high-risk schemes designed to maximize the tax value of carry-forward losses. They are:
- Corporate reorganizations, in particular those in which profitable companies buy money-losing companies solely for the tax benefits of their losses, which is illegal in the United States.
- Certain financial instruments, including currency swaps and schemes that “refresh” soon-to-expire losses.
- Non-arm’s-length transfer pricing, or the prices companies charge between subsidiaries for goods and services. This is not legal in the United States and is a subject of growing scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service.
Tags:carry forward losses, OECD, shifting losses, shifting profits, Tax, tax planning
Posted in Business, Economy, European Union, International Trade | Comments Off on Chasing losses for Corporate tax planning
August 16, 2011
The amounts of money sloshing around in the EU in carbon trading scams is mind-boggling and puts even drug money into the shade. The EU emissions trading scheme has been one of the major drivers of corruption in the last few years. The latest scam to come to trial is in Germany where just the tax evasion amounts to €5 billion ($7 billion). The total value of the carbon trades involved in this particular fraud probably exceed €50 billion. The frauds revealed so far are just a tiny fraction of all the succesful frauds that have been perpetrated – and all with the undoubted help (and connivance) of EU politicians.
It would not be surprising if the total cost of the EU emissions trading schemes (assuming a conservative 80:20 principle) exceeded €250 billion. Eventually, the cost of all these carbon trades will have to be borne by EU taxpayers and electricity consumers.
Reuters reports:
A 5 billion euro tax fraud returned to haunt European Union’s emissions trading scheme on Monday as six individuals faced tax evasion charges at a trial which starts in Frankfurt. The case will haul the market’s multiple scandals back into the spotlight but is unlikely to implicate investment banks following a similar case against small firms in Britain.
In an activity which peaked in May 2009, traders bought carbon emissions permits in one country and sold them in another, charging for and then keeping the value-added tax (VAT) which they should have handed to tax authorities.
- The total value of the fraud was at least 5 billion euros ($7.1 bln) in lost tax receipts, according to Europol
- Charges have been brought against individuals at small firms. Europol said the fraud was linked to criminal networks operating outside the EU including the Middle East
- The biggest swoop, initiated by Germany in early 2010, saw more than 2,500 officers involved across European and other countries
- In Germany, prosecutors said in March that in addition to the six individuals charged, a further 170 suspects including seven Deutsche Bank employees were still under investigation and could be charged later
- In Britain, the first trial of seven suspects risked delay as the investigation unearthed new evidence
- It was easier to open an account on the carbon market registry than to open a bank account, allowing less reputable characters to participate.
- As a new market, tax authorities in EU member states were slower to spot the fraud opportunity
- The fraud was carried out on an unregulated spot market. Participants in such markets do not have to register with financial authorities, unlike in futures markets
- As well as making it easier for fraudsters to gain entry, unregulated markets do not force strict know-your-client (KYC) rules on law-abiding participants meaning criminals escaped detection more easily
- Officials at Paris-based Bluenext have not denied that their spot exchange was used by tax evaders but have maintained that they acted to stop the practice
- French tax authorities are demanding 355 million euros ($505 million) from Bluenext, owned by NYSE Euronext, in unpaid VAT related to trades that occurred on the exchange
- The EU’s head of tax, Algirdas Semeta, and of climate change, Connie Hedegaard, in June sent letters to EU states urging them to apply reverse tax charges which would remove the opportunity to buy EUAs VAT-free and then pocket the tax
- The carbon market has suffered scandals besides VAT fraud, including a phishing attack, the circulation of used emissions permits and cyber theft of EUAs
- The market has seen near-record low prices in recent weeks as the threat of a new downturn widens a glut in permits
Tags:Bluenext, carbon trading scams, Emissions trading, EU corruption, European Union, global warming
Posted in Alarmism, Business, Climate, Corruption, Energy, Ethics, European Union | Comments Off on One EU Carbon trading scam comes to trial: €5 billion just in lost taxes
July 5, 2011
The number of German politicians who have plagiarised for their doctorates grows. After zu Guttenberg, the story of Sylvana Koch-Mehrin and Jorgo Chatzimarkakis is building up into another dirty little tale.
EU politicians are less than impressive. The level of corruption and scams along with the level of arrogance of the EU politicians in Brussels is almost legendary. From my experiences I am fairly certain that the level of political corruption in Europe is significantly higher than for example in India – but far more sophisticated and difficult to find.
The distinct impression is of pigs feeding in a trough.
Pigs feeding from the EU trough
From Professor Debora Weber-Wulff’s blog:
Sylvana Koch-Mehrin had her doctorate rescinded by the University of Heidelberg for containing over 30% plagiarism in May 2011, and now in June she has been named EU commissioner for research, Spiegel Online reports.
This means that she is in the committee that determines research policy for the EU. She had been an alternate for the committee, her fellow FDP politician, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis (his dissertation is currently at 71% plagiarism, but he is contesting the plans of the University in Bonn to rescind his doctorate as well) had the main seat. They have now changed places.
What does this say about research in Germany? What message does this give to the general populace about the importance of research? Plagiarists determining research policy? If today was April 1 I would have considered this an April Fool’s joke, but it is unfortunately true.
Poor Germany, all of your good researchers do not deserve this.
Update: A petition has been started requesting that she step down immediately. It is online in English, German, and French. If you feel so inclined, please sign. There are already almost 2000 signatures – on day 1 of the petition.
I just signed this petition and I am signer #8325.
Tags:EU Commisioner of research, European Union, Germany, Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, Plagiarism, Sylvana Koch-Mehrin
Posted in Behaviour, Corruption, European Union, Germany, Politics, Scientific Fraud | Comments Off on Plagiarist with a recently rescinded PhD appointed EU Commissioner for Research
June 16, 2011
Dagens Industri’s panel of finance and economy experts have a bleak view of Greece remaining within the Euro. Emergency loans will be necessary anyway but in the long term, they feel, Greece has to leave the Euro not only for their own sake but also for preventing a collapse of the EMU.
The only way out of the euro crisis is with Greece’s exit from EMU, says Dagen Industi’s expert panel. But only after a lengthy process with more emergency loans to avoid the risk of a new financial meltdown a la Lehman Brothers in 2008.
“Greece is actually already bankrupt. Market prices speak for themselves. The country would not survive a day without an emergency loan from the European Union and IMF” said Marie Giertz, chief economist at Länsförsäkringar.
A new global financial crisis threatens if Greece does not get emergency loans and are forced to suspend payments to private lenders, including German and French banks, warns the European Central Bank ECB and the large rating agencies. Germany and others complain that European taxpayers cannot just continue to sponsor Greece’s debt tangle with never-ending emergency loans.
Cecilia Skingsley, chief analyst of Swedbank’s foreign exchange and fixed income trading, believes that the new emergency loan is the solution only for the short term. But that Greece must eventually leave the EMU. “With a further loan program maybe the market calms for a while. Then in a few years we realize again that this is not sustainable. Therefore I think that Greece must leave the monetary union. In return, they may get a little waiver of some of the emergency loans from the EMU ” said Cecilia Skingsley.
Jan Häggström, chief economist at Handelsbanken, points out that the euro country taxpayers have to bear the Hellenic liabilities no matter how it goes. The alternative to providing further emergency loans is credit losses in the European banking system, which in turn would require government bailouts. “In the end somebody has to write this down and it is not unlikely that Greece will have to leave the euro, but that is further ahead in time” says Jan Häggström.
Greece, in principle, needs to step out of the EMU in order not to drag down other crisis countries into a major depletion of their treasuries, reasons Tomas Pousette, chief economist at SBAB. “Otherwise it is difficult to see why, for example, Portugal should endure ten years of very tough fiscal policy while Greece simply chops off their debt. For a Greece outside the EMU, debt would be burdened by high interest rates and bankruptcies would threaten the country’s banking sector. But the country would also get a chance to revive its tourist industry with its own, lower, exchange rate “, says Tomas Pousette.
Tags:Dagens Industri, Euro, Euro crisis, European Central Bank, European Union, Greece
Posted in Economics, Economy, European Union, Greece | 2 Comments »
May 25, 2011
Once again the blind belief in computer models has closed down parts of European air space. Observations and measurements are given less weight than computer models which are at best crude approximations of a chaotic system. The unthinking belief in approximations to reality merely because they are generated by computer models denies the sapience in homo sapiens!!
BBC:
Most flights have resumed across the UK after a day that saw thousands of passengers affected by an ash cloud from the erupting Icelandic volcano. Air traffic control company Nats said harmful concentrations of ash dispersed from UK airspace overnight. But some flights within the UK and a number to Germany will be cancelled.
As one blogger puts it:
Airline managers are complaining that last year, officials did not do enough to check the actual conditions in the air, instead relying too heavily on computer models showing where the ash was supposed to be. Yet, despite the experience, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) is saying that it is “astonishing and unacceptable” that a British aircraft that is supposed to check actual conditions has been unable to fly.
The disruption arises in part from “volatile winds” which are said to be carrying clouds of volcanic ash down from Iceland over the northern British Isles. But those same winds which caused the rough weather yesterday must also have dispersed the ash.
Without real data, however, forecasters are unable to provide accurate information on ash density and particle size, relying instead on weather patterns and computer modelling to give a rough approximation of conditions. And, with no clear guidance as to closure rules, the only significant difference between this year and last is that the weather conditions are more changeable, allowing more favourable estimates of ash dispersion to be made.
Climate Realists: We know that the Met Office doesn’t bother much with evidence, witness Prof John Mitchell’s unguarded remarks at the Downing College Conference:
People underestimate the power of models. Observational evidence is not very useful,… Our approach is not entirely empirical.
Tags:Alarmism, computer models, Grímsvötn, Volcanic ash, weather
Posted in Alarmism, Aviation, European Union | 1 Comment »
May 6, 2011
The economic and fiscal variations within the Eurozone have become too large to be hidden away and perhaps it is time for the Euro to split. A two-tier Euro could be an interim solution but it makes no sense to force the currency to compensate for and match the wildly different shapes of the member economies.
Greece going back to the drachma or to an “olive” Euro may not be such a bad thing for the rest of the Eurozone though it will only probably lead the Greeks to delay taking the actions that will anyway be necessary. Fiscal profligacy cannot be sustained.
back from the euro to the drachma?
Der Spiegel:
The debt crisis in Greece has taken on a dramatic new twist. Sources with information about the government’s actions have informed SPIEGEL ONLINE that Athens is considering withdrawing from the euro zone. The common currency area’s finance ministers and representatives of the European Commission are holding a secret crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night.
Greece’s economic problems are massive, with protests against the government being held almost daily. Now Prime Minister George Papandreou apparently feels he has no other option: SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou’s government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.
Alarmed by Athens’ intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. In addition to Greece’s possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country’s debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union — regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece’s massive troubles.
Given the tense situation, the meeting in Luxembourg has been declared highly confidential, with only the euro-zone finance ministers and senior staff members permitted to attend. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Jörg Asmussen, an influential state secretary in the Finance Ministry, are attending on Germany’s behalf.
…… Sources told SPIEGEL ONLINE that Schäuble intends to seek to prevent Greece from leaving the euro zone if at all possible. He will take with him to the meeting in Luxembourg an internal paper prepared by the experts at his ministry warning of the possible dire consequences if Athens were to drop the euro.
“It would lead to a considerable devaluation of the domestic currency against the euro,” the paper states. According to German Finance Ministry estimates, the currency could lose as much as 50 percent of its value, leading to a drastic increase in Greek national debt. Schäuble’s staff have calculated that Greece’s national deficit would rise to 200 percent of gross domestic product after such a devaluation. “A debt restructuring would be inevitable,” his experts warn in the paper. In other words: Greece would go bankrupt.
It remains unclear whether it would even be legally possible for Greece to depart from the euro zone. Legal experts believe it would also be necessary for the country to split from the European Union entirely in order to abandon the common currency. At the same time, it is questionable whether other members of the currency union would actually refuse to accept a unilateral exit from the euro zone by the government in Athens.
What is certain, according to the assessment of the German Finance Ministry, is that the measure would have a disastrous impact on the European economy…..
Tags:Drachma, Euro, European Union, Eurozone, Greece, Olive Euro
Posted in Economy, European Union, Politics | 5 Comments »
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